News, notes, and anecdotes on the Fort Wayne TinCaps

The Wertheimer Effect

Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t… Allan Wertheimer, best-known as the king of free food in this town and worst-known as our video guy, took a job with the Minnesota Vikings. He’s gone. We’ve already hired his replacement, but before we move on, let’s reflect on some of Allan’s greatest hits over the last few years.

Tried every single food offering at Parkview Field. For free. Twice. You know, in case there was a bad batch or something.

Defeated Pat Ventura in the preliminary round of a belly-flop contest, only to lose in humiliating fashion in the main event the next day.

Sent (in mid-game, mind you) a text message to the “text if there’s trouble in your seating section” number, requesting ice cream to be delivered to the press box.

Is a certified coach/manager killer: Doug Dascenzo lasted a year with the TinCaps after Wertheimer got here. Same for Jose Flores. Then, about a week after Allan got to Minnesota, Tony Kornheiser’s stunt double got the axe. Coincidence?

Somehow took an in-season vacation from Minnesota to Hawaii (after about a month on the job), during which the biggest snowstorm in over 20 years caused his place of employment to literally implode.

This is what we call the Wertheimer Effect. Underestimate it at your own risk.

Also, Jeff Greer is the new guy. He interned with us in 2009 and with the Tampa Bay Rays last year. Check out his stuff here. It’s good.

Random thoughts:

I’m kind of surprised by how mad people are in San Diego about the Padres trading Adrian Gonzalez. He’s a hometown guy and one of the best first basemen in the game, but that only means he was going to become too expensive for approximately 25 MLB teams. This is how baseball works right now.

It hasn’t always been this way. After the 1992 season the Yankees missed out on Greg Maddux, David Cone, Doug Drabek and Barry Bonds, many of whom signed elsewhere for less. What has changed in 18 years? My guess is the players’ union pressuring these guys (and their agents) to “set the market” and take every last penny. But what do I know?

For the third time, the Jason Bartlett trade is still not done. Apparently a physical is holding it up. It would be pretty awkward for everyone if it didn’t end up getting done, wouldn’t it?

Call me crazy, but wouldn’t a season-ticket holder for an MLB team follow the team closely enough to know the team’s budget restraints?

I haven’t been able to find an updated MLB Draft order for 2011, but the Padres will get five picks in the first 45 (or so) overall, thanks to Yorvit Torrealba, Jon Garland and Kevin Correia going elsewhere. It’s pretty much an industry-wide belief that the way to build a stable franchise is through the draft, but it takes a few years.

I read an article this weekend that argued that, if baseball goes to two wild cards per league, it should also abolish the divisions, play a balanced schedule and just take the top five teams in each league to the playoffs. That makes a lot of sense for the rest of the AL East (and from a fairness standpoint in general), but powerful people care about TV ratings and this could set up some terrible things on that front. It’s not all that tough to imagine a year with no teams from the west in the post-season. Yikes.

Discovered this weekend that the Black Eyed Peas are performing at halftime of the Super Bowl. But then again, this awkwardfest was the halftime show four times. And Kid Rock made it one year. One day we’ll look back on this and laugh, but that day isn’t today.

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